Contrive, connive

Experience leads us to be cautious about agents of change whose zeal for revolution overwhelms good sense. If Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care revolution turned out to be an ambush in broad daylight with a blackjack, then the GOP conservatives remind us of those impatient bully drivers who get on your tail at 70 mph and would just as soon force you off the road than pass safely on the left.

However, the conservatives get full credit for making it possible to debate virtually everything that not so long ago was out of bounds for serious policy discussion, including the FDA...